A review by adelita18
The Monogram Murders by Agatha Christie, Sophie Hannah

adventurous challenging mysterious reflective slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

This was a very hard plot to follow. Like other reviewers, I was intrigued by the "Agatha Christie" signature all over the cover and missed the true author credit in much smaller font below. While Ms. Hannah did a great job of capturing the overall ambience of a Poirot-period book and some of his nuances there were things that just dragged the potential enjoyment out of the book.  
  1. Although this is ostensibly a Poirot story, there are multiple chapters in which he does not appear in the middle of the book - you just follow Edward Catchpool and his bumbling investigation away from Poirot. 
  2. The general plot itself was intriguing and had the flavor of an Agatha Christie mystery at the outset. Then about a third of the way through the book, it seemed like the options for resolution became unwieldy and got out of hand for Ms. Hannah. The plot really slowed down and became convoluted. By the time I got to the denouement, I felt overwhelmed by the presentation of the evidence. I kept wondering "Is this over yet?" 
  3. There were too many minor witnesses and junk evidence they brought in to the story. Not only did it unnecessarily muddy the waters, it led to a very unsatisfying epilogue to resolve why that was junk evidence. 
  4. Catchpool is a hard character to walk with through the story. He has a very difficult personality - self-critical, snippy, easily manipulated, jealous, and whiny. It  is no wonder why Ms. Hannah wrote Poirot as barky toward Catchpool throughout the story. I mentally shouted at him myself. 

That being said - I did enjoy the narration by Julian Rhind-Tutt. Honestly, that's the reason I stuck with the audiobook - I found his vocal acting very engaging. His Poirot sounded a lot like David Suchet and I loved that. 
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